Michael Douglas

Michael Douglas (b. September 25th, 1944)

Wonder Boy Michael Douglas's Wonderful Career
As the son of screen legend Kirk Douglas, Michael Douglas proved early in his career that there was something uniquely cinematic in the family genes, and he has since forged a legend of his own, winning Academy Awards as both a producer and as a lead actor. In the 1970s, after a stint as detective Karl Malden's young partner in TV's The Streets of San Francisco, Douglas took home an Oscar for producing Milos Forman's One Flew over the Cukoo's Nest. In the '80s he emerged as one of Hollywood's top stars, with roles in such blockbusters as Romancing the Stone, Fatal Attraction, and an unforgettable, Oscar-winning turn as the rapacious stockbroker Gordon Gekko in Oliver Stone's pulp classic, Wall Street. The '90s saw Douglas's star fade a bit, but now with leads in two acclaimed, Oscar-nominated films -- Curtis Hanson's Wonder Boys and Steven Soderbergh's Traffic -- this Hollywood heavy hitter is hotter than ever. Douglas talked to Barnes & Noble.com about his success, failure, and why audiences like bad guys best.

Barnes & Noble.com: In Wonder Boys you play a rumpled writer whose bestselling days are over and ends up wearing his estranged wife's pink bathrobe as his life falls apart. I guess we could say you weren't going for the glamour in this role.

Michael Douglas: I've always tried to kind of stretch my wings as an actor and do things that are different. I had just finished two Prince of Darkness roles back-to-back, The Perfect Murder and The Game, playing slick, well-dressed, and well-coiffed characters. I've been very blessed and fortunate that audiences allow me to play different roles. A lot of actors get concerned about their own image, even going so far as to rewrite a movie to best serve that image. All I want to do is be in good movies. I know if the movie is good, it works for everybody, whether it's Falling Down, or The War of the Roses, or Wonder Boys.

B&N.com: Did you identify with your character in Wonder Boys?

MD: Wonder boys are people who have success really early in their lives, with seemingly no effort whatsoever. Then they start wondering, "How did I get it?" They start analyzing this success that came to them so naturally, and then they lose it and their confidence goes. I kind of related to that in the sense that I was 30 years old when I got the Oscar for One Flew over the Cuckoo's Nest. I said, "Oh man, it's all downhill from here." But it turned out okay.

B&N.com: Another role in which you played a less than attractive guy was Falling Down, and it wasn't a huge success.

MD: I never felt it got the critical attention it might have. I guess a lot of my films are very ambiguous, meaning they're hard to pigeonhole, and that doesn't always grab an audience. But you work on your failures just as hard as you do on your successes. I still think of Falling Down with fond affection. I'm really proud of that film . . . and Whammy Burgers.

B&N.com: Have you ever tried to analyze why people were so blown away by your performance as Gordon Gekko in Wall Street?

MD: It was the weirdest and the most bizarre thing, because it was one of the nastiest roles I'd ever played. To this day, I get guys, who have a few under their belt at a restaurant, that come up to me and say, "Man, I saw Wall Street. You're the guy that made me realize greed is good, right, man? Greed is good." They love it. But it's part of the bad-guy syndrome, I guess. Actors have always done well playing the bad guys in movies. Audiences enjoy bad guys because through these characters, normal people are able to experience, vicariously, what its like to be vicious, nasty, and amoral. Kindness is not rewarded very much as far as drama is concerned. Comedy is not rewarded enough. But you look back, you look at Paul Newman in Cool Hand Luke or my dad's first real attention-getting role, Champion. It proves we like our boys bad.

B&N.com: What's a misconception people have about you that really bugs you?

MD: I hear this thing about how calculated business decisions have influenced my choice of pictures. But it's just not true. One Flew over the Cuckoo's Nest, The China Syndrome, Romancing the Stone, Fatal Attraction -- all those films took a long, long time to get made, and they were rejected by a lot of studios. When people analyzed them as "commercial successes," it was really Monday-morning quarterbacking, and I always resent that a little bit. When you're making pictures out of heartfelt passion, it hurts when someone calls them a calculated business move.

March 13, 2001

Awards & Nominations